Strange Birds
by SalomeLily
Summary: The new Defence teacher is definitely a strange one. It's also no secret that she has feelings for a certain brooding professor.


**Written for Round 2 of the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition.**

**Prompt: Snape brooding.**

**Extra prompts: burying (word), jumbled (word)**

She was a strange one, the new Defence teacher.

She came muttering to herself in an incomprehensible blend of French and Euskara, a dusty rose carpetbag thumping against her knees with each step. She was a skinny little thing, with the unorthodox grace of an underfed bantam hen. That had been her nickname as a little girl, raised in the arms of the west Pyrenees - _notre petit poulet_, our little chicken. She was young yet, not quite twenty-seven, but most would estimate her age a decade more. Her dark hair was feather-like, when released from its severe chignon. She had unspeakably tragic eyes, with cobalt irises and liquid pupils that seemed to contain her entire tremulous soul. These were the eyes that the ancient Byzantine mystics and artists had immortalized, though exactly how they had arrived in Labourd was only known by Monsieur Irati's unassuming Muggle wife and the charismatic young wizard who had come from Constantinople those many years ago.

Nerea Irati - Professor Irati now - gazed rapturously at Hogwarts Castle. She had _so_ despised the powder-blue turrets of Beauxbatons Academy as a schoolgirl, how they perched about so prettily, like a tray of iced cakes. Another oddity of Nerea was her deeply unpatriotic adoration of all things British: the decisive colors, the matter-of-fact lines, the warmth. The Gothic spires, silhouetted so Byronically against the darkly muttering night clouds, stirred her poetic Basque heart as she had thought only Shakespeare could.

'It's very "Fall of the House of Usher," you know?' she murmured to the benignly hulking figure of the gamekeeper, who had greeted her cheerfully from the boat but now looked slightly taken aback. Gallantly, he kept up a steady stream of welcoming and advice, but Nerea was watching the water part like liquid obsidian around the boat.

The wavering yellow glow of light, eminating from the narrow windows. The steady _thunk_ as the boat touched ground. The graciously curving arch of the ceiling in the Great Hall. Glorious promise and magic and the faint, redolent hum of anticipation - this was Hogwarts.

The other staff members were very kind, very welcoming. The students would arrive next week, they said. Nerea did not miss the knowing looks that rippled along the staff table. No one had been able to hold down the Defence Against the Dark Arts position for more than a year, they said. Best of luck to the new professor.

One voice was not welcoming, though he payed the briefest amount of lip service necessary to avoid open rudeness. Nerea probably shouldn't have fallen in love with him. But, as her _maman_ would say with a shrug, _c'est la vie._ She simply loved him, and this was a thing that simply _was_, like the moon, and the Danube. She would never be able to say what it was about him that first struck her, but truly, it was the soft tradegy in his dark eyes - not the quiet, plodding tragedy of existence, or the sharply bleeding tragedy of grief renewed, but the patience of Piero della Francesca's angels - he had dedictaed his very being to a lost love, with no hope of relief or reward in the only known lifetime.

Classes began. The students grew accustomed to treating the odd little Professor Irati with an ever-rotating combination of amused indulgence and hushed respect. The staff, too, learned to take her erratic, quietly humming self in stride. Her habit of mumbling to herself in what Minerva identified as broken French and some other language was particularly unnerving, but she was pleasant enough and an intelligent teacher. She had a witty tongue in her head, as well, when one succeeded in winning her into conversation. Septima Vector usually had the most success in this, since she knew a self-described 'dash' of French. Severus would have had yet greater success, and almost entirely in the Queen's English too, if he had bothered.

Autumn shaded quietly into bone-chilling winter, which heated to spring. Nerea developed a bad habit of slipping unobtrusively down to the dungeons, to talk to him, or just grade papers in his office, looking up at him infequently as she would allow herself. He was coldly suspicious at first, but quickly came to accept her visits with a measure of politeness. To Severus's own surprise, he rather enjoyed Nerea's company. She was . . . interesting, with a thorough knowledge of Defence Against the Dark Arts and a wealth of anecdotes from her childhood in the Basque region. She was also genuinely interested in Severus, asking about his thoughts, his hopes, his subject, his family . . . anything, really. It was the sort of simple yet meaningful attention that he had never received in his adult life. Nerea craved his company as a sunflower cranes its neck to catch the life-giving drops of sunlight. She was content, though, with friendship. She never asked about the one he loved, the one for whom he was waiting selflessly.

May came, her shining green raiments lighting the grounds of Hogwarts and tempting the students out of doors when they ought to have been studying for exams. Nerea watched the return of roses and Flutterby bushes with mild interest, but her heart truly knew the season when Severus gave one of his rare smiles. But as it is said that man cannot live on bread alone, neither could she survive on hidden admiration anymore. Not that it was ever really secret - the other staff members had noticed with reactions ranging from amusement to pity - she simply lit up around him.

She stood in the doorway to his office, her eyes glowing jewels. Severus looked up from his book, one eyebrow raised in amused skepticism. Blue eyes met black.

"I love you," she said simply.

Severus froze. _This was not supposed to happen_. "I . . . am flattered . . . honored . . . will you excuse me a moment?"

Everything was all jumbled up now, and Severus didn't know which way was up.

His best friend, the odd, beautiful Defence professor, was in love with him. Well did he know that feeling, that bittersweet longing.

Was there any reason why not . . . why he should not return her sentiments . . . ?

He tried to conjure up the memory of those serence cobalt eyes, but all he saw was green. Almond-shaped and emerald green, Lily's eyes. He couldn't bury that love for someone else that he didn't love. Some things could never be buried.

He marched around the grounds, his cloack swirling like ink behind him. Lily had teased him for his constant brooding. _Well, my love, this time it's for you._

Nerea didn't need to stay around to know what his reply would be. With a sinking heart she ascended the Astronomy Tower and watched her love pace around the grounds. When crumbling twilight faded to full night, she left, packing her few belongings in her dusty rose carpetbag. Someone else could administer the exams to her students, someone else could teach next year.

Hopeful hearts can always heal, but they need some distance from what broke them.


End file.
